Existing crater of Vesuvius, from Louis Figuier's The World Before the Deluge, 1867 American edition. This crater erupted in 1829, within the former crater. Vesuvius is a stratovolcano in the Gulf of Naples, Italy, best known for its eruption in 79 AD that led to the burying and destruction of the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Since then Vesuvius has erupted around three dozen times. The volcano became quiescent at the end of the 13th century and in the following years it again became covered with gardens and vineyards as of old. Even the inside of the crater was filled with shrubbery. Vesuvius entered a new phase in December 1631, when a major eruption buried many villages under lava flows, killing around 3,000 people. The last major eruption occurred in 1944.